The Lost Fleet
by EnderDragoon
Summary: Prototype vessels, the USS Insignia modular cruiser and USS Vesta slipstream ships along with the USS Diligent and USS Final Storm form a unique fleet as they fight to survive a trek across the Gamma Quadrant. A strange dampening field is proving navigation to be difficult. Affections between a half Vulcan science officer and her captain threaten their professionalism.


Chapter 0

T'Pel shrugged, a very un-Vulcan-like gesture. Being half Vulcan afforded her such a lapse of steely reserve. Her science console simply defied logic. How could something be 500,000 kilometers and also be 3.2 AU off the port bow? She recalibrated the sensor array, ran low level diagnostics and switched to secondary processor relays to multi-thread the calculations of navigational telemetry. Even with redundant computations the computer returned its results, without throwing any errors, which simply contradicted itself.

"Well?" Captain Valera inquired. Sitting on the edge of her chair, half turned to the left, fixating her intensely deep green eyes on the science officer. Valera's impatience was barely discernable, even to a trained Vulcan's ears. _That is truly intransigent reserve _thought T'Pel, though she dared not make direct eye contact.

The pressure of silence propagated throughout the bridge of the USS Diligent. It descended on the officer with the weight of a thousand neutron stars. Again the half Vulcan shrugged. She sense the anxiety of failed expectations emanating from the other bridge officers. After all, they never expected the day that T'Pel, of all their remaining crewmembers, could possibly lack for an answer to any query. T'Pel, however, called on a little used social defense mechanism, brought about from her other half from her early childhood. Living with such unbearable internal contradictions forced her to take a different approach that called to question her Vulcan heritage. Most people, in fact everyone other than closest acquaintances, only knew her to be Vulcan. She was, on the surface, visually a thoroughbred Vulcan after all. When she had joined the Academy at the age of 13, in Earth standard years, she had never been exposed to a species other than Vulcans and as such never needed to develop the capacity to handle her hidden sense of others raw emotions. No Vulcan was equipped to train her in this cultural discrepancy, she soon realized, and developed her own methods of coping. Shrugging was simply one of those mechanisms. It channeled the overwhelming anxiety put forth from others to a more manageable confusion. No one had seen a Vulcan shrug before. Then again no one had seen a half Vulcan, half Betazoid before either.

"I will have to run further diagnostics to properly reconfigure our navigational platform. We may have the best sensors in what remains in our fleet but they are still largely damaged on top of having an incomplete installation when we left dry dock." T'Pel formulated the most appropriate response for the captain. Every statement was a struggle to maintain her Vulcan stoicism. Only when she was alone could she drop her guard and indulge in her hidden half. Only when she was alone with her could she respond to those blue eyes filled with desire, and relish in the taboo relations that threatened her career and social acceptance. Only when she was alone with her could she thrive on the thrill of her affair with their captain.

T'Pel refocused her thoughts on the task at hand. Her vision had blurred as her eyes had become unfocused due to her lapse into carnal imagination. The fleet was counting on the Diligent to solve this navigational crisis, they were counting on her. She turned her strongest Vulcan stare to her captain, her secret lover, with an expression that conveyed her confidence in the aforementioned statement. She needed time and resources.

T'Pel never intended to be on the bridge of a starship. She belonged in a lab. A stellar-cartography lab preferably. But with the recent death of the Diligent's Operations and Science officers, there was little options. T'Pel had been given a field commission to lieutenant and assigned to the bridge, ordered by Valera herself. This only compounded the social awkwardness she was confronted with on the bridge, surrounded by veterans of their respective fields in starship operations. Tre'bor was the least experienced of the present company, aside from T'Pel herself, who had nearly twelve years at the helm of smaller classed escort frigates. T'Pel had barely occupied this chair in the back left corner of the bridge for 36 hours. To her, this station couldn't be recessed far enough from the center of the bridge, away from the commotion, from the pressure, from the urgent immediacy of everything on the bridge. She needed time to analyze each particular set of circumstances, identify common elements, build an experiment, record her data and form an educated hypothesis regarding any scientific conundrum. Instead solutions and responses were expected of her immediately, the potentially inaccurate nature of such responses could get the ship destroyed and the crewmembers killed.

T'Pel understood why Vulcans advanced more slowly with space travel and all things concerning technology. Vulcans took their time, studied and only then made informed appropriate decisions. She understood why the Vulcan High Command was reluctant to simply hand over technology to humans, during the early formation of Starfleet, that had expended fractional amounts of effort to obtain. It was just dangerous.

Yet somehow, having lived among humans now for almost a decade, she had come to understand something else about them: an unphasable tenacity that gives them gives humans, what they call spirit, a capacity for extraordinary accomplishments. Any scientific outside observer would be quick to call them foolish, risk taking and hazardous, but the raw statistics demonstrate a success to failure ratio that defies all logic. T'Pel even caught herself beginning to believe that perhaps the humans had it right from the start, their track record certainly corroborated it. In everything from first encounters to developing new and profoundly dangerous technology, the humans seemed to have an impressive grasp on ethics and acceptance.

T'Pel sighed inwardly. She couldn't help but lapse into reminiscing over her work back at Jupiter Station. The projects left in the middle of progress. Dissertations had been left nearly completed, almost ready for publish. She wondered if anyone would continue her work, or if it would be boxed up and stored away, perhaps even destroyed before she returned home, if ever.

Her Betazoid half wanted to strike out in anger, remembering how they had become stranded out here, dealing with one paradox after another just getting started on a return home. There was grieving for lost loved ones to do, but the more immediate problems kept everyone at their posts, focused on their work. If only she hadn't set foot onto this ship. If only they hadn't been deposited on the other side of the galaxy, so far from her home and work.

It was a Caretaker. Similar to the tragedy of Voyager, no-one in Starfleet or the Federation considered a Caretaker to be a continuing threat. Pulled into the Gamma Quadrant, 84,000 lightyears from Earth, Vulcan and Betazed, which T'Pel had yet to visit, only three of their ships survived intact after their confrontation with the Gamma Caretaker, as the crew had come to call the life form. Three ships remain of seven. Recalling the events sent shivers down her Betazoid spine. Once the crewmembers were beamed back to their ships the captains had contacted each other.

"Voyager's history stated that the Caretaker refused to send them back, stating the technological difficult of it" T'Pel had recounted in front of her captain while in conference with the other captains on a damaged view screen. She stood near Valera's side but far enough away that she didn't give the impression of a first officer. Some could only attend via audio. "Logic states that the aggressive attitude of this Caretaker will yield a different response."

"What is the basis for your assumption?" asked Captain Fandarel, commander of the USS Insignia.

Again, T'Pel was forced to find rational evidence to what she sensed empathically. "Simply that, while the species and technology are similar, the circumstances are not. This is no caretaker in the literal sense. All Menshara, M-Class planets are barren within five parsecs, devoid of all nucleogenics and life forms. An infinitesimally small probability. We can therefore interpolate that this entity has likely destroyed these planets along with their inhabitants. Logically this leads to the only extrapolation of probably actions from this "Caretaker"."

"And that is?" Captain Drell of the Steamrunner class, USS Final Storm, asked after a short pause. The expressions of the remaining visible captains apart from Valera, echoed Drell's impatience and curiosity.

"Violence," T'Pel said dryly. The captains glanced at each other on the conference screen.

'Red alert. Tre'bor, what's the ship's status?" Valera asked, confidently taking command of the situation as if this crisis were routine.

Tre'bor's hands flew over the commands on his console. Stationed at front and left of center on the bridge, the Conn was missing its neighbor. The seat at the Operations station was vacant along with Science and Engineering. "Thirty two of our crew members were returned, the warp core is offline, minimal long range sensors, no short range sensors, shields offline but charging off auxiliary power which is at thirty five percent. Inertial dampers, life support and hull integrity are at one hundred percent. We can achieve one third impulse without charging shields or maneuvering thrusters only with shields."

"I need to know what's going on out there, can you give me a visual?"

"Negative Captain, with long range sensors only I could give you a subatomic analysis of their hull but that's about it."

"Damnit, where's a science officer when you need one? What's the status of lieutenant Dotry?" Valera continued.

"Sick bay just pronounced her dead two minutes ago." Tre'bor looked away from his console with a sullen expression.

Valera turned to T'Pel, flushed red in the face with the anger of loss. Words need not be spoken between them. The request was clear. T'Pel turned and moved towards the science station.

Chapter 1

It may not be her forte, but her specialty with advanced cartographic mapping gave her a few tricks she could use with a sensor grid that she guessed few starship captains had seen. T'Pel pulled up a current status of the deflector dish; Grids A7 through G43 were burnt out beyond repair, the remaining 44% of the dish would have to suffice. While reorienting the emitters for an inverse elliptical graviton field she began charging the emitters with neutrinos. Once the particles reached a critical valence order of 2 across the majority of the event horizon she discharged the field omnidirectionally around the ship. She guessed that at this decay rate with an initial field of .3 ergs the resulting boundary should encompass the entire fleet giving any descent sensor officer at least a few moments of broadened sensor bandwidth.

The USS Diligent was equipped with an interferometer based long range sensor grid. T'Pel knew that once the phase shift of the particles that made up the foundation of raw sensory data passed through the horizon it would adjust the amplitude by a magnitude of 4.3x10^18, bringing the data roughly into what would typically be used for short range, wide band sensors. The kind used for visual displays and ship analysis required for combat.

Immediately the ship and station automated analyzer came alive and began to display a general overview of the fleet status and the status of their kidnapper, which sat alarmingly close at 4km to stern.

"Captain," T'Pel began, "the Caretaker is at point blank range bearing 180 mark 0 range 4 kilometers."

Tre'bor craned his head around his reclined seat at the Conn, briefly, to express a face a pure amazement at T'Pel while pointing at his console which she could see with her Vulcan visual acuity displayed the same information she had. Sensors we back online, if only briefly. He returned his attention to piloting the ship.

Protocol, T'Pel recalled, even for not being a starship resident, demanded that the minimum standard safe distance of 10 kilometers should be maintained between all ships and stations not maneuvering with the intent to dock. T'Pel felt the shudder throughout the superstructure of the Diligent as the aft thrusters came alive, driving the 140 million metric ton vessel forward.

Captain Valera turned back to the picture in picture conversation with the other captains who were visibly busy with undertaking similar operations. "Gentlemen, we need to regroup, do you all have sensor data?"

"I don't know how you did it captain, you've got a hell of a science officer there," Captain Fandarel responded through a bloodied lip. Clearly the captain had taken a battering when they rode the gauntlet across the galaxy, which didn't dampen his charisma. He was a slightly stockier than normal individual for a human, tall and broad with a thick beard that was suspiciously well kept. Dark eyes set in deep eye sockets gave him an impression of wisdom, intelligence and cunning. Captain Fandarel outranked the other captains by several degrees and had an air of command about him that demanded obedience and loyalty. One not only felt obligated to follow him, everyone _wanted_ to follow him. Demoted from Admiral, Fandarel had reached the limits of how far adhering to principals and integrity could take you up through the ranks, even though he always thrived the most as a captain.

"Actually she's non-commissioned from the Daystrom Institute." Valera responded with discernable pride, exchanging the smallest moment of eye contact with T'Pel which told her all she needed to know about her love and appreciation for her.

"I'm taking command of the fleet," Fandarel declared. If he noticed the exchange between T'Pel and Valera he gave no indication. "Frigates move to a safe distance from the array, cruisers move into a more defendable position, we'll cover the frigates if we have to. Let's try to move out of the array's weapon range. How long will we have sensor acuity?"

"By my estimates optimal resolution will taper off within five minutes and become inert within seven," T'Pel responded, not needing to run the calculation through the computer. Rudimentary linear calculus of space field propagation was first order numerical mechanics for any Vulcan. "As long as we remain within roughly 500 kilometers of the focal point," she added.

"All I'll need is three," Fandarel half grinned again. "Final Storm, what is your weapon status?"

T'Pel returned her focus to the sensor array, she would try to salvage what was left of the equipment for the time being from this painfully watered down station. She was accustomed to having several square meters of workspace, thousands of custom mapped commands, within reach back at Jupiter Station. She would have to make do with less than one tenth of the work area and a default layout.

After all she only needed minimal passing awareness of the conversation on the view screen to follow the movements and coordination of the fleet. If she found an opportunity to take the initiative and assert something vital to her captain she would do so. Instantly her Betazoid half lurched in at an inopportune moment, which it frequently did, and assailed her with doubts about her decision making process. Perhaps she should be more passive and wait for an assignment from her partner, no, her captain, before taking such aggressive initiative into her own hands. No, her initial instinct was right, just as Tre'bor began to maneuver the ship without orders, he knew what was expected of him. T'Pel knew the protocols for bridge operations as well, as alien and awkward as they may be to a pure scientist. She knew they existed for a reason, refined down from generations of space travel and countless battles won and lost, dating back to before space exploration when ships trudged across vast tracts of water and could only use the stars for navigation. Just the way T'Pel scans the endless night sky at her fingertips.

One of the parameters she mapped for an alert began to flash a florescent red. She tabbed the notification open for a complete breakdown. The axial rotation of the caretaker array had shifted across it's lateral axis. It was now rotating at .08 RPM on a third axis as well, logically she determined the station was repositioning for a combat ready stance.

The best defense against an unknown force was to gather information and act with the first initiative. The most strategically sound decision was the one that yielded the greatest return at the lowest cost. Using the present heading and speed of the fleet and the rotation rate of the station she narrowed down the scanning of the array to the most likely location of weapons the array would use and began a beta grid, expanding search of normal surfaces, primarily looking for changes in hull angles inconsistent with station integrity. Such a search should yield the location of any weapon port or array. Physics were constant in the known universe and any intelligent species would build any structure with said parameters in mind, a well developed design from a sophisticated culture would produce similar patterns in design that can always be exploited.

"Captain," T'Pel began her analysis knowing she could process the information as it became available to her mid conversation.

Valera turned toward her and raised a single eyebrow at T'pel, saying _this better be good _ in a nearly playful tone.

"I have pertinent information about the array. They have detected our movements, and with 98.54 percent likelihood determined us a threat due to our defensive regrouping. The station is repositioning about its polar and lateral axis to present its primary weapon armament toward us. Its firing arc, range and yield I am attempting to determine but it could prove fatal, even from a single salvo. I recommend we maneuver to remain out of its potential 178 degree firing arc about the location I have highlighted."

Commander Fandarel was listening intently while delivering orders to the fleet. Valera simply returned her attention to Fandarel and paced forward to stand behind Tre'bor to monitor the condition of the fleet from his console. Valera was rarely one to sit in her seat during any intense circumstances, it took everything she had not to be hands on with everything she did, on and off the bridge.

"Alright change of plans they aren't responding to hails. Final Storm load your Tri Cobalt Devices, maximum yield, we know they work. Fleet make best speed to the position opposite that weapon and maintain 1000 kilometers from the station at all times. Everyone raise maximum shields, I have a hunch this is going to get bumpy."

The first discharge of directed energy from the Caretaker was directed at the Steamrunner Cass ship. Roughly the size of the Diligent, the Steamrunner filled a unique role. The only ship ever produced by Starfleet to be an artillery ship, a Steamrunner could fire exceptionally high yield weapons with precision from supreme distances. Whilst using remote assisted torpedo navigation to assure contact with its target allowing a torpedo to compensate for rapid maneuvering ships and evading counter measures with outstandingly complicated chaos theory algorithms, process aboard the ship, to predict future ship and countermeasure locations. Designed as a Cube buster, during the years of Borg invasions into federation territory, the Steamrunner was a likely primary target of any assailant.

Before T'Pel could voice her concern for the incoming barrage at the indefensible artillery frigate, her fleet position monitoring window caught her eye. The USS Vesta had appeared to cross nearly 1500 kilometers quicker than would have normally been available even to a highly powered warp vessel, quickly enough that the Vesta had actually returned to normal space in time to intercept the pulsed energy discharge before connecting with the frail shields of the Steamrunner Class, USS Heavy Storm. The USS Vesta clearly had classified engine technology T'Pel wasn't privy to. Judging by the way the ship impressively absorbed the rarified energy, the vessel must have several highly advanced systems. The shield grid quadrant that contacted the pulse actually grew in output index by 1.4 terahertz which made T'Pel's Betazoid half almost want to raise an eyebrow in awed curiosity.

Safe from harm the USS Heavy Storm earned its name. Unleashing it's Tri Cobalt device, emerging from its aft upper secondary hull, directly at the heart of the array 4 torpedoes traveled rapidly across the battlefield at high impulse in rapid succession. Signature blue aura engulfed the devices on their determined trajectory. A static-like field polarized around the station and almost made the hair on the back of T'Pel's neck stand up from the shear visual effect of it. It's shield output must be incredible. Sensor resolution was still effective but the finer points of alien technology was no longer coming across in a coherent raw data stream, making interpreting the information difficult.

T'Pel glanced up at Valera, filled with Betazoid concern for her mate, she sensed the repressed fear coming from her that gave T'Pel a momentary pause. The intuition of a captain was something she saw up close but only in private settings. Something about the experiences a captain had, due to their ultimate responsibility to their crew and the Federation, shaped a captains insight to a degree that allowed one to apparently perceive details any other person would believe impossible to discriminate. Yet Valera knew something bad was about to happen and T'Pel could sense it through her. On the surface Valera maintained a Spartan reserve that only a Betazoid could read through.

Chapter 2

"Crew members log, star date 48372.1. Perhaps in a fear of death the array unleashed all its weapons at once. Perhaps it was charging up and made a final attempt at survival. Perhaps this Caretaker knew of the demise of the one that crossed paths with the venerated USS Voyager. All is speculation lost to history now as three of the seven ships were destroyed in that final volley, moments before the Tri Cobalt devices ripped through the array's shields and structure, tore a hole in the space time continuum, and pulled the station in on its own weight into a subspace black hole. The Final Storm is now in pieces, perhaps never to be rebuilt, but still maintained by her crew of 16 and Captain Drell. With her engines destroyed, one warp nacelle completely gone, she is now in tow of the USS Insignia. The largest of our fleet following the destruction of the array, the USS Insignia is an advanced prototype vessel of modular design, currently outfitted with the LRDS (Long Rang Deep Space) configuration. The LRDS layout brings the most hope to their fleet as they have impressive astrometircs and manufactory systems onboard. The Heavy Storm would have been left abandoned, picked for parts for the remaining 3 ships, if it weren't for the hopes of rebuilding her with the Insignia's manufacturing and repairing facilities. Taking little damage from the fight was the USS Vesta and USS Diligent also survived. After the captains had a closed door conference they decided to openly discuss the technology hidden in the fleet in the hopes of increasing our chances of returning home. All their ships were prototypes, first of their kind, named after their ship class. That is apart from the Final Storm which was a matured variant of its original blueprint, slated for decommission in an effort of Starfleet to get back to its roots of space exploration and peace that founded the Federation.

"The USS Vesta contains a Carbomite Reactor that can absorb and even return directed energy to its original target and a now partially damaged slipstream drive. I am still familiarizing myself with this technology as I will likely be the most experienced science officer to work on it and am the fleet's only chance of rebuilding the device that brings full meaning to the Vesta's engines. In transit from the Alpha quadrant where the Vesta was doing a low velocity initial test of the drive to where the Caretaker deposited her, the subspace torsional forces of the engine attempting to compensate for its off track heading and trajectory, which it was built to do to a small degree, caused micro fractures in its quantum substrate to develop. The result is that very low orders of slipstream velocity (SSV) can be achieved safely, according to their pilot, and a potentially moderate velocity for as much as .38 seconds can be sustained which would be equivalent to several days at high warp. Even still, at the rate of minimal SSV, even if the Vesta could carry the entire fleet's crew, we are likely to be 45 years from home. If we survive I will have an impressive journey to narrate to my children.

"Our ship on the other hand was not built to house the latest of advanced technology. The USS Diligent was built to be a durable vessel. Primary and secondary shielding, deployable ablative hull armor, retractable warp nacelles, and a stronger superstructure than a Galaxy class in a starship the size of the Defiant. The Diligent is, in short, the best ship Starfleet could build out of proven and mature technology.

"End log."

Chapter 3

Valera stepped off the transporter pad aboard the USS Insignia. Commander Fandarel was there with his first officer, whom Valera didn't know the name of. The first thing she noticed was the transporter operator was of insufficient rank to operate the equipment by himself. A Bolian, standing with a distant posture arms folded in front of his chest, staring down to his left as if he was stricken with the trauma of battlefield survival. The operator's dour expression conveyed such intense sadness that Valera couldn't help but feel the welling pain growing in her gut. She assumed he must have lost friends or loved ones due to this disaster.

Nearly two days had elapsed since they left the Caretaker array, or at least what was left of it. The tear through subspace from the cobalt devices was substantial enough to draw most surrounding matter into its event horizon. Including everything worth sticking around to study before they were underway in what they believed was the best direction towards Earth. Sensor damage seemed to be the common element throughout their three and a half ship fleet.

After traveling blind, at low warp, in attempts to exceed whatever field was causing their inexplicable lack of sensor acuity, for nearly 30 hours, Fandarel ordered the fleet all stop. Fandarel remained in command of their fleet and none of the other captains questioned it, they had all privately agreed that he was most capable and they required the organization to properly utilize what capacity each ship maintaned. Resourcefulness was the most important quality of all their fleet's members for the time being. All suggestions were given full merit.

Commander Fandarel called a counsel of all chief officers to convene on the Insignia to discuss their situation. Valera had few officers to bring with her. Tre'bor and T'Pel accompanied her to the Insignia. Chief Engineer Orwell insisted he remain on the Diligent to continue repairs and oversee a number of critical systems that were undergoing major inspections. Since the trouble currently faced had little to do with engineering systems Valera had agreed to proceed without him.

"Captain," Fandarel began in greeting, "welcome to the Insignia." He stepped forward and offered a hand, extended on a muscular arm to vast for his uniform, to Valera which she gratefully accepted. Fandarel's grip was impressive even though she had the impression that he wasn't making a show of physical strength. Fandarel was simply very strong.

"Thank you Commander," Valera responded, wearing as warm and accepting demeanor as she could muster. "My Science Officer, T'Pel and Conn Officer, Tre'bor," Valera introduced her officers which shook hands with Fandarel's first officer.

"First Officer Andrews," the man was slender and tall, short brown hair and piercing perceptive brown eyes. Toned and lean muscles on long arms and legs evident through his standard issue uniform gave Andrews an aura of athleticism. Valera could instantly picture how such a man would become a first officer as such qualities are excellent for the person responsible for leading away missions on a regular basis.

"Although I must say I thought the USS Insignia would have fared better than the rest of us." Glancing around, Valera began to notice the damage, even just to the transporter room. Panels hung open on inspection hinges. Various conduits and modules of hardware showed signs of scorching and rupture. Evidence of plasma burns etched out across the ceiling and floor near a bulkhead adjacent to the transporter buffer assembly, leaving intricate striations that seemed to add an oddly pleasant aesthetic quality to an otherwise purely utilitarian facility.

"We're thinking of keeping it," Fandarel continued, gesturing to the markings on the floor, once he released Valera's hand. She wanted to rub the circulation back into her appendage but returned the limb to her side. "Don't give the Caretaker too much credit. Most of the Insignia's damage is self inflicted. I'm afraid we're piloting a masochistic vessel." A flicker of humor crossed his face, a sight for Valera's sore eyes.

Fandarel lead them out into the corridor. More panels were opened, some forcibly. Repair crews carried away with their tasks. The engineering detail was so concentrated on their work that they didn't even notice their captain and other high ranking members of the fleet walking past their mobile stations and inspections underway.

The corridor was wider than she anticipated. Darker in color, heavy brushed steel and amalgamations of other alloys lined the walls between where structural bulkheads protruded subtly into the walkway. Warm blue-white light poured out of slats along the top and bottom edge where the wall panels almost met the ceiling and deck plating.

"She was built over powered, the Insignia that is, and we were doing final testing to tune her engines. Co axial warp cores have only recently been theoretically stable. This ship was to be the proof of concept." They rounded a corner towards the turbo lift at the end of the hallway. Fandarel continued, "We were in the middle of open plasma injector diagnostics when we got pulled out here. Some of the crew has started calling it _the_ _shift. _We were caught with our pants down so to speak. Without being able to throttle the output from the primary coaxial drive she went instantly to full bore. It blew out the entire primary EPS grid throughout the ship. We've been running on our tertiary core since arriving here. Luckily the engineers back at Utopia Planitia had enough foresight to outfit us with a secondary EPS grid."

Valera had to take a moment to absorb this. Coaxial warp cores? Slipstream drives? Carbomite reactors? The technology being outfitted to newer class vessels was astonishing. She couldn't help but wonder what the motivation behind developing such equipment could be for the Federation. Perhaps war was at their door step once again. The federation had just finished recovering from the last major engagement with the dominion, 20 years ago, and was back to a solid track record of admitting new races to their charter and colonizing new worlds. Peaceful expansionism had been all of what Valera had experience in her adult life. She would have expected Starfleet to invest in bigger and faster colony and diplomatic ships not deep space vessels with technology of questionable intent in times of peace.

It dawned on her, perhaps for the first time, that the concerns of home now may be moot. This far out on the frontier, so far from the Alpha Quadrant, they would need to be more conscious of their own survival than the political ramifications of starship engineering. She had been so immersed in the condition of her ship, the Diligent, and the well-being of her crew getting through the loss of half their friends and co workers that she failed to step back and consider the bigger picture they all faced. The only solace she had was in the fact that they were in it together. This must be the way the crew of Voyager felt. An old motto came to her mind, an ancient group of military combatants know as infantry or grunt men at the time that went by the designation Currahees: "we stand alone, together."

Inside the turbolift Andrews ordered the computer to take them to the conference room on deck 2. "The Vesta's crew is already here. Captain Drell of the Final Storm was able to attend but his skeleton crew remained on his ship, keeping her together no doubt."

The turbolift opened to a short corridor with a mess hall on the right, the conference room on the left and ten forward at the end opposite the lift. Through the large glass panel doors ten forward was clearly visible at the bow of the ship where a panoramic view of space displayed the awesome spectacle of the cosmos. Their party of five entered the conference room where a heated discussion between a Betazoid tactical officer and a human captain were debating their circumstances.

"We need to get sensors back online on at least one of our ships before we can even begin to _find_ a planet where we could rebuild anything in the fleet." The Betazoid woman with a yellow collared uniform turned her chair to face the newcomers and began to stand up, "Captain."

"Remain seated commander," Fandarel said to the woman as he lead the group into the room. The tactical officer returned to her seat as Fandarel dropped into a chair to her left at the head of the table. The room was oval with the conference table filling the majority of the space. Oriented with the head of the table against the wall with the only view to space, the table was teardrop shaped with a chamfered tip where the point would be. With enough seating for approximately twenty people, the room was sparsely populated with a meager 12 individuals who spaced themselves out around the room. Naturally grouping themselves by which ship they were from it was clear to identify each group.

Fandarel and his science officer, Ensign Jerome, as he was introduced sat with his first officer, Andrews and the Betazoid tactical officer they came to know as Lieutenant Haven. Jerome had a distant, aloof personality that appeared not to let anyone in. Valera guessed he was in his mid forties, if he was a human, which he appeared to be. She had learned how little stock to place in her assumptions based on other appearances. Space was a weird place with a diversity of species that staggered the mind. She had a hard time imagining what it must have been like before the Vulcans landed on Earth when humanity debated whether there was other life in the universe at all. Jerome leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed and stared at the small table mounted console immediately in front of him. Short and lean, Valera wondered how Jerome managed through the minimal physical requirements at the Academy. It was likely that he had a more athletic conditioning before specializing as a science officer.

Haven, on the other hand, clearly was the physical opposite of Jerome. Tall stature, long dark black hair and a striking facial structure made Haven a spectacularly beautiful woman. She was the paragon of youthful vigor and at the pinnacle of her adulthood. Haven had clarity about her, noticeable in her body language that gave Valera a sense of excellent hand eye coordination and a mastery of motion. Every move seemed calculated and executed with supreme confidence. Haven owned everything about herself. Valera would have a descent challenge not feasting her eyes on her, especially in front of T'Pel. Her relationship with T'Pel had become grossly complicated since their departure from Jupiter Station where the Diligent was ordered to bring her to the colony of Danube where a classified research facility conducted studies Valera didn't have clearance for. Upon entering the room Valera felt Haven's ever watchful eyes upon her and every member of the conference. Valera felt analyzed, as if Haven's subconscious mind was searching for weaknesses in her motion, gauging her ability to fight, perhaps with or even against her.

Valera was experienced enough as a Starfleet captain to not take this personally. Starfleet training teaches tactical officers to analyze every situation, regardless of any presence or lacking of a threat level. Even if the perception yields no actionable information 99% of the time it still maintains a degree of brilliance with the exercise.

The Insignia crew grouped around the head of the table at the 12 o'clock location. At the nine-o'clock position sat a single man. Captain Drell, as Valera recalled his face from their early conferences over the viewscreen. The man appeared broken. Scars ran across his right cheek in a cross shape that faded down his jaw line and neck, another scar twisted its way up his left arm and disappeared under the cloak of his short sleeved uniform. Scorch marks and frayed edges around his shirts collar highlighted his blank expression as he stared forward not focusing on anything. Some would probably question his stability and captaincy, but something about him allowed Valera to place confidence in the man. Drell must have sensed Valera glance at him as his sight shifted upon her and he smiled slightly at one corner of his mouth. The gesture was warm and accepting and it put her at ease.

At the three-o'clock position was the crew of the USS Vesta, captained by Miral Paris, shadowed by her first officer Shelby, a Bajoran man who appeared to have freedom fighting furry etched into his features, and Jacobs, a vibrant Trill Conn officer with a deceptively innocent boyish smile. Being one quarter Klingon, Miral was one of the most revered Klingons in Federation history. Believed to be the Kuvah'magh by certain factions, she carried an inherited leverage on political conditions between the Federation and Klingon Empire. In some ironic capacity Valera realized that as an infant, even if only for a brief moment, Paris was the only person in their fleet that had been this far from home before. Born on the return trip home trough Borg transwarp conduits aboard the USS Voyager, Miral Paris was daughter of Tom Paris and Be'Lanna Torres.

Valera had previous personal dealings with Paris herself as she had served under Valera's command a few years before receiving her own command. Paris had also inherited a strong capacity for engineering systems and piloting ability. She could see why Starfleet had chosen her to command a vessel of the likes of a prototype slipstream starship. Paris sat with her right leg crossed over the other, leaning on her right elbow having a close conversation with her pilot. Miral looked up and made eye contact with Valera as she entered the room and stood behind the remaining seats at the end opposite Fandarel and the Insignia's present officers.

Paris immediately bounded to her feet and made her way over to Valera, interrupting the conversation with her Conn officer mid sentence. "Captain!" pride filled Miral's voice. She took Valera's handshake in a friendly greeting. "It's been forever. Just when you think space is so big, especially after the last few days, it drags you out here with me."

"It's good to see you as well _Captain_ Paris." She emphasized the rank with a broad smile. Nothing filled a commanding officer with more joy and sense of accomplishment than seeing the success of a subordinate that she helped hone into an excellent officer in the fleet.

"Gentlemen and ladies," Fandarel outstretched his right hand sweeping it towards the other seats. "Captains if you would please find a seat. We have a lot to go over." T'Pel sat to her right and Tre'bor to her left. "Jerome, if you could give us a status report."

Jerome shifted in his seat, keeping his gaze focused on his console and took a deep breath. "Fragmented information has left us with little to state with much certainty as to our immediate circumstances," Jerome began as a hemisphere of an orb, roughly one half meter in diameter, began to glow a faint blue in the center of the table. Shortly after a second hemisphere, opposing the one in the table and directly above it, lowered from a port in the ceiling and stopped two meters over the tabletop. A hologram flickered into being as it shifted from invisible to a more corporeal image. A three dimensional star chart filled the volume of the conference room filling it with blue light but still leaving each other's faces visible through the transparency in the lower half of the projection. "What we do know is that the sensor issues we had when we first arrived here are not associated with the difficulties we have now. The engineering staff aboard the Insignia has been working triple shifts to restore the sensor grid and by now we should have more ability to scan local and distant space than the telemetry we currently are receiving."

"What are you saying? Your sensors are working but they aren't working?" Miral asked with a tinge of her Klingon attitude. Significantly more in check than her mother's capacity for putting others off, Miral still carried a similar knack for expecting results from those around her. Valera also noticed the slip of tongue. Perhaps the USS Vesta had established more sensor operation than the rest of the fleet.

"Something is jamming our sensors," Jerome added. Fandarel and a few others around the table leaned back in mild exasperation. It certainly explained why navigating this space was becoming exponentially more difficult. "Upon arriving here in what we believe is the outer reaches of the Gamma Quadrant, sensors were damaged during _the shift _that brought us here. At the time the Vesta and Diligent retained the best sensor accuracy. At the request of T'pel we trilaterated the grids to obtain the best image we could. Upon picking up the radiative flux of nearby stars a rough approximation of our current position was formulated. We then set course along 163 mark 358, galaxy relative vectors, which should be in the direction of Earth. Upon making repairs to the grid we should be receiving better sensor resolution but it has regressed to a critical condition no longer leaving us safe for warp travel."

The hologram shifted, spinning slightly and zooming in from a galactic scale. A rough image of each ship was depicted and a path visualized their heading and trail leading back to the Caretaker.

"From what I can determine," T'Pel contributed. "The source of the jamming is not a natural phenomenon. There are distinctly consistent signatures conflicting with what stellar bodies would typically produce." This information sank in with the others at the table. Valera turned to face her science officer and studied her face. Valera guessed that T'Pel was likely listening in on everyone's emotions. What value she placed in the information was a mystery to her, but it was the only explanation Valera could conceive of that explained why a Vulcan would pause momentarily in the middle of reciting dry evidence before continuing. "Further more I believe there are at least two independent sources of the jamming, each with unique signatures. The strength of which is increasing at a factor of one over x minus seven point three n. N being the unknown distance to the source of the jamming field."

T'Pel's deeper scrutiny of the signal astonished the others at the table. Jerome was even impressed enough to glance up and raise his eyebrows. "I would love to see your raw data on that analysis," Jerome requested.

"Certainly," T'Pel tapped a few commands into her console, apparently to send the report to her fellow colleague.

"What is the status of your ship, captain?" Fandarel placed his steely gaze upon Miral.

"We have full impulse, shields and weapons. Sensors have been repaired but we're having trouble getting a navigational fix like the rest of the fleet. We can only achieve warp 8 safely until we finish overhauling the plasma conduits. The slipstream drive flux manifold is damaged, but we can do small hops without stressing its housing. The Carbomite Reactor is fully operational." Captain Paris let noticeable reservations be heard from her voice when she mentioned the Reactor. Classified technology was the highest kept secrets in Starfleet, second only to the priority placed on the Prime Directive. Letting advanced technology fall into unintended hands prematurely had caused great suffering in many degrees throughout the Alpha Quadrant over the centuries. First Officer Andrews absorbedly entered notes into the computer access panel at his seat and Haven stared intently at Miral, obviously curious about any tactically relevant advantage they might have.

"Captain?" Commander Fandarel fixed his eyes on Valera.

She collected her thoughts briefly. "The Diligent is at one hundred percent apart from partial damage to the deflector array which won't hinder us with normal operations. We sustained minimal damage during _the shift_ but suffered heavy losses. My ship is able to run on a minimal crew and can sustain herself. My bridge is rather sparse at the moment, however."

"We'll have to look over the crew rosters and redistribute resources where necessary. I'll start taking volunteers for transfer to other ships. My guess is some will jump at the chance to get away from the loss they've endured the past few days." Fandarel glanced up at the swirling representation of a nearby nebula in the hologram.

Captain Drell was alertly following the discussion but Valera could see in his face that he felt of little help, the Final Storm was in no condition to contribute to fleet operations. It was a testament to his ship's design that she didn't breach antimatter containment when his port nacelle was ripped from the ship by the focused modal beam from the Caretaker Array. Commander Fandarel made eye contact with Drell for a moment; silence fell over the conference room. Drell looked away, sorrow casting over his face. Valera knew exactly how he felt for she had been there before. Just before she lost her previous ship, the USS Sparrow, she had done everything should could to continue to contribute some useful capacity to their small scout fleet along the Romulan Neutral Zone. The loss of the Sparrow is what led Valera to her current command of the Diligent. Realizing that your ship has become a burden to the fleet is the most difficult thing a captain has to bare, she sympathized with the man.

Fandarel stood without asking Captain Drell for a report on his ship. "We need to make repairs and determine the source of this sensor interruption. Captains Paris and Valera, I want you to devise a method of determining the size of this jamming field. If we can reverse course and go around it, fine. If it's too big to circumnavigate we'll cross that bridge when we get there. The Insignia will remain with the Final Storm to assist with repairs," Fandarel exchanged a small nod with Drell. "Don't go outside of our limited sensor range, if you reach the edge of it and need to explore farther, send shuttles out. We can't lose sensor contact with each other or we may get lost. Your secondary goal is to locate a planet or otherwise that may have resources we can use to actualize repairs. Have your chief engineers submit a list of required components and materiel to my First Officer. I will do everything I can to restore the Storm to move under her own power. We may be far from home but we have a substantial fleet still. Starfleet regulations still stand; if we work together we can overcome anything."

"What about dry-dock? The repairs you're suggesting we make require a shipyard." Tre'bor chimed in. If he felt intimidated by Fandarel's broad stance he didn't show it.

"We have a few secrets of our own, Ensign. This trip may have been unscheduled but the Insignia couldn't be more at home. This ship was designed to support a small fleet in deep space. We have an onboard repair array that, given enough time, could manufacture smaller ships remotely. Keep your eyes open pilot, things are about to get interesting." With that Fandarel turned and exited towards the primary bridge of the Insignia.

"And here I thought things were already interesting," Tre'bor quietly exclaimed, leaning over so only Valera and T'Pel could hear. T'Pel's only response was a single raised eyebrow which reminded Valera of a similar expression T'Pel would often make in the bedroom at her suggestive propositions.

Chapter 4

Back aboard the Diligent, Anne Valera finally had the first chance to relax and clear her mind since arriving in this distant hell hole. She removed her vest and dropped it on the floor near the table she had for small meals between shifts. Too exhausted to continue attempting to maintain her composure she let herself fall onto her bed haphazardly. Her feet dangled over the edge of the mattress as she laid face down and relished the sensation of letting the tension out of her muscles.

Oh the sweet bliss of doing _nothing._

There was little time to stop and relax though. The Diligent was on course to a nearby system, if you could call it that. Populated by a singular red dwarf star and no orbital bodies at all, the system was their first waypoint to begin mapping out new navigational fixes. T'Pel had suggested we record the exact signature of a few nearby systems that had strong enough gravimetric readings to use as a triangulation method of plotting nearby space. Since gravity was a reliable signature even deep into the recesses of space from a source, T'Pel convinced her that a simple positioning system would be possible. Valera was losing focus on the topic at hand when Tre'bor and T'Pel began discussing an old positioning method terrans used on Earth in the early twenty first century know as GPS at the time which used a similar technique.

Anne turned her head sideways and looked across her quarters. Meticulously Spartan without a single personal effect in the three room living space, her quarters weren't much of a home. Her life was on the bridge, that's where home was. Not that she could personalize the bridge at all, but there is where she thrived. Before her First Officer, Commander Giles, was killed during _the shift_, he would often have to demand she leave the bridge and get rack time before returning.

Much has changed in just a handful of days. Close friends and confidants lost forever. Her crew was in tatters and her relationship with T'Pel was now questionably teetering on extinction as well.

Before being thrust into the Gamma Quadrant, she had maintained a stable relationship with T'Pel. It had been perfectly professional with them living in separate locations to explore a relationship. Anne was content living a life of solitude until she crossed paths with T'Pel at a science conference when she captained the USS Sparrow. As a diplomatic assignment, the Sparrow had moved several dozen VIPs, including T'Pel, from a handful of worlds to the location of the conference on Tau Ceti 3. She had difficulty remembering the topic of the congregation but clearly recalled the eloquence with which T'Pel spoke.

With the obvious beauty of a Vulcan, delicate movements and a pristine figure, Anne couldn't help but be drawn to T'Pel. What intrigued Anne was her subtle passion. When T'Pel spoke about cartography, Anne couldn't hardly keep up with the techno babble, but she did catch the intonations in her voice. The inflections in speech patters that betrayed T'Pel's heritage to Anne. She was curious about T'Pel.

Anne had been concentrating so hard on T'Pel from the back of the audience hall that, thinking back on it, T'Pel must have sensed her desire. As T'Pel glanced across the room, captivating her audience in her recital, her gaze settled on Anne, if only for the slightest moment. The connection was instant in that sliver of time. T'Pel's narration continued and never once made eye contact with Anne again during the conference, but she had never felt her heart beat so furiously in her chest before.

Anne was seated on a stool at a nearby bar, nursing a glass of dihydrogen monoxide on the rocks, just outside the auditorium, processing the moment, letting her welling emotions return to normal. Anne was willing to let the moment pass and eventually resume her duties as captain of the Sparrow. To Anne's surprise, however, T'Pel approached her shortly after the speech. No words were spoken, out loud anyways.

Anne looked to her right and up the perfectly sculpted frame of a healthy, tall and slender Vulcan woman. Petite in proportion for her height, deceptive long arms displayed little of how strong she knew Vulcans to be and a facial expression the exactitude of composure and confidence. Garbed in a simple tan dress, sewn of heavier materials, Anne was drawn in by the reservation of its design and lack of symbols or outward fashion. Something about her presence, the stance of her body as T'Pel shifted her weight to one leg, gave the impression that the same passion and intensity she hinted at on her speech was here with her now.

_This woman desires me as well_ thought Anne, something was certainly different about this Vulcan. This absolutely real woman.

T'Pel stepped closer and Anne could feel the warmth radiating off her body. Anne felt like she needed to declare a medical emergency as she had never felt her heart beat so heavily. Perhaps it wasn't mere water she was drinking. No, these feelings were real, this moment in time was to be cherished.

T'Pel reached out her right hand and gracefully cupped it around Anne's left cheek and jaw bone, cradling her head in it's warm and soft embrace. T'Pel's thumb stroked across the skin on her cheek below her eye. Instantly immersed in the comfort of her contact and intensity of the gesture, Anne's eyes began to close.

Time slowed to an infinitesimally slow pace. Her perception of the beverage flowing from a spout being operated by the barkeep described every detail of each droplet being caught by a glass and the exchange of suspended carbon dioxide transitioning to a gaseous state and escaping into the atmosphere. Hair on the back of her neck stood up as her prehistoric genome prepared her body to acknowledge every aspect of this instant.

Anne's mind slipped inward into the recesses of her consciousness. Darkness enveloped her non-corporeal existence but she felt the presence of T'Pel in her mind, kind and accepting. Anne felt at ease, the way she had as a child at her grandparents farmhouse at the edge of the lake. Without perceiving the transition she was swinging in the hammock that was tied between two trees just feet from the water's edge with the buzz of cicadas precessing through the warm summer air.

T'Pel was standing on the rickety old wooden dock, with her back to Anne, where a paddle boat was tied up and the sound of water lapping against its metal hull modified the gentle waves that disturbed the perfection of the water's surface. T'Pel shifted her sight up to the sky and slowly turned her head and then her body in fluid precise movements until their eyes made contact again. The calmness and security of the setting gave Anne the impression that she had known T'Pel all her life and trusted her unconditionally.

T'Pel walked along the dock towards her and her heart began to race again. She felt like a child as her blood rushed to her cheeks and waves of emotion poured over her. Anne wanted to jump into the lake and let the piercing crisp clear water purge the welling sensations of unbearable desire and love.

T'Pel walked up beside her and sat down on the hammock to her left never breaking eye contact with Anne. The hammock shifted to the new center of gravity and raised Anne's feet of the ground enough that they were now gently swinging from the shift of weight. The curvature of the netting disallowed for anything other than direct contact with each other's sides and Anne felt comfortable wrapping her arms around T'Pel's torso and rested her head against her shoulder.

They deftly rolled over to the left where they fell into each other's embrace and laid there, cuddling, in the shade of the giant oak trees. T'Pel stroked the hair at the back of Anne's head and caressed her neck while time passed in this dreamlike space. The hammock continued to rock in a steady period and lulled them both to sleep.

T'Pel pulled her hand away from Anne's cheek and she sharply inhaled at the experience. They were back at the bar on Tau Ceti 3. The bar tender was still filling the same glass of alcohol for another patron. Mere seconds must have passed in the hours she had just spent in the mind meld with T'Pel.

Anne knew this woman now. Judging by T'Pel's body language as she took the booth to her right and discretely placed her hand on Anne's forearm, this woman knew her as well.

Together there they sat and talked. Discussing everything from each other's careers to their childhood experiences, an unshakable bond was formed. The shon-ha'lock as T'Pel described it in her native tongue. The engulfment which binds two together as if two minds were grafted to each other for all time.

Anne woke from her dream. Returned now to the her bedroom aboard the Diligent she reached up and rubbed the her temples while remaining lying face down. _Too many dreams within dreams _she thought as she walked her way through recalling the unconscious episode. _I'm even getting exhausted in my sleep_. She must have been so tired that she didn't remember more than a few seconds of lying on the bed before dozing off. She felt the urge to return to the bridge, a never ending anxiety she had whenever she was apart from her command post.

"Computer, time."

"0433 hours," the computer diligently responded, it gave Anne a small chuckle that offset her headache.

Anne felt a mild static charge in the air and across the sheets on her bed. The low whine-like hum that was characteristic of a site to site transport was the only sound Anne heard apart from the ever present high frequency pulsation of the Diligent's engines. T'Pel stepped into view from around the partition that separated her bedroom from the living space through the open archway. T'Pel's composure was always immaculate. Anne knew that T'Pel had been awake for nearly 4 days now but showed zero indication of her fatigue. Anne on the other hand couldn't will herself to get up and greet her partner. Drowsiness had set in and threatened to return her to unconsciousness.

"T'Pel, I'm glad to see you." Anne began but T'Pel didn't respond. Instead she moved over to Anne and sat beside her on the bed, placing one hand on the small of her back. Anne closed her eyes again and breathed deeply. A smile crept across Anne's face as she knew where this was going.

T'Pel began by rubbing Anne's back, along her spine, applying gentle pressure with her palms to enhance the circulation of blood flow through Anne's back. T'Pel had a Vulcan's understanding of bipedal physiology, but years of experience with this particular companion had given her a remarkable understanding of her unique musculature.

T'Pel lifted Anne's shirt over her head, exposing Anne's back and delicate skin. Unhooking her bra and laying the straps to either side, Anne continued to lay on her stomach giving T'Pel complete access to the continuous curvature of her back. T'Pel's hands hunted for knots and strained muscles in her lower back and shoulders. Subtle moans came from Anne's lips as the tension was methodically worked out of her body.

"T'Pel, ugh" Anne began, trying to find words between the waves of pleasure emanating from the muscles throughout her body. "Are we ok?"

T'Pel hesitated for a moment before continuing her work. "My affection for you is unchanged Captain. But given the circumstances" Anne stopped her by reaching back with one hand and grabbed T'Pel's wrist with surprising strength for a human. T'Pel paused, caught in the torrent of conflicting internal battles once again, she was at a loss for words. Her Betazoid half was screaming out in passionate furry for her to do what it takes to hold on to this love. Fear encased her mind, contributing to her present instability. She pulled her hands away from Anne's back and placed them cupped in her lap.

T'Pel had forever worried that indulging in her Betazoid half would undo her capacity to repress her emotions to at least a manageable degree. She had read about ancient Vulcan, in the time before Surak's teachings, where barbarism was the defining feature of her species. It wasn't until great philosophers learned to control their violent tendencies that culture finally had the foundation of stability to grow. It defined their basis of logic and their entire thought and decision making process. How could she know what would happen to her if she let these feelings grow in her, unchecked, without being reigned in through every moment she was around Anne.

And now Anne was her captain. The universe conspired against her and her relationship with Anne. She feared regressing into a barbaristic creature, out of control, out of reach of logic.

Anne was now sitting up, facing her, leaving her bosom in full view. T'Pel stole a momentary glace at her womanly figure as Anne sat cross legged unconcerned with her apparently revealing posture. The 'goose bumps' as humans call them that had developed across her skin from the massage began to dissipate. Erect nipples enclosed in small pink-red areolas accentuated the petite features of her perfectly shapen breasts. Subtle abs were evident across her stomach. T'Pel was attracted to her athletic figure, strong legs and proportionate torso that made her hips irresistibly magnetic. Anne Valera wasn't frail skinny or heavy in even the slightest sense. Anne's family descended from Russia and thus gave her voluptuous lips and strong facial features. Bright green iris's encompassed by wide round eyes that caught every detail studied T'Pel.

Anne was a full head shorter than T'Pel but it seemed almost appropriate in their relationship. Aboard her ship, especially on the bridge, Captain Valera was in command. Confidence was absolute from their captain. Certainty in each order and delegation of tasks was a defining feature of Valera. Outside of the bridge, when they were alone together though, Anne preferred to let go. T'Pel understood Anne's desire to not be in command of someone for once, and in some instances even stripped of control. In the years they have been together, they had developed a strong and healthy yet adaptive sex life. Their countless mind melds had brought them closer to emotional, physical and spiritual bonding than either of them ever thought possible in their lives.

T'Pel's eyes locked with Anne's. "I could transfer to another ship so as not to jeopardize your captaincy."

This time it was Anne's turn to luck away. "I don't want you to go. I need you now more than ever to help me get through this." She returned her gaze into T'Pel's eyes, that total confidence as the captain returned. "You've proven yourself invaluable in just two days. I'm short staffed already and this has all be difficult enough. I don't want to lose you again. I've lost enough people I love."

T'Pel slowly nodded her head in acceptance, it is what she wanted wasn't it?

"We can make this work T'Pel," Anne continued. "We can be discrete."

T'Pel raised her right hand to Anne's left cheek once again, as she had that day on Tau Ceti 3 and countless other times. The mind meld began to clasp their consciousnesses and they closed their eyes, falling into each other's embrace.

Chapter 5

"Captain, I request that you reconsider." Lieutenant Haven insisted.

"I understand that it appears obvious for you to transfer to my ship," Captain Valera replied.

"Permission to speak freely."

"Granted."

Haven had her hands behind her back, keeping her stare forward at a blank bulkhead in Captain Valera's ready room. She always had better luck getting through to captains if she didn't make eye contact. "With all due respect Captain," Haven said as friendly as she could muster, dropping her hands to her sides and relaxing her stance. "You need me, the Diligent needs me and I need you."

"Explain why you need to be on my ship," Valera was a patient captain but her recent trip through memory lane and intense discussions with T'Pel left her at wits end. Even still Valera attempted to remain as diplomatic and tactful as possible. "Please, speak candidly."

"The truth is, I can't return to the Insignia, for... personal reasons. The insignia isn't the place for me anyways."

"You have your reasons to leave and I respect that, but why the Diligent?"

"Captain you know as well as I do that the Insignia is going to be our hub ship on this journey. She's too slow to get directly involved in combat and ground assignments. She's a support vessel. The Vesta has a full crew and the Final Storm is an artillery ship. The Diligent is going to be sent into the middle of the shit storm. This is where the action is, this is where I'm needed."

"Denied."

"Captain?" Haven had never been taken aback this harshly before. Her proven ability in the field and at a tactical station had given her nearly any assignment she had asked for. She _expected _it. The Diligent was without a first officer or tactical officer and she could fill both roles. Starfleet had even offered her command of her own ship on a handful of occasions. She was ready and experienced. She had burned her bridges aboard the Insignia anyways, this was her only option. Why was Valera resisting the transfer? This was the most strategically sound move, potentially the most critical shipboard personnel transfer in the fleet. There was something else going on that was outside of her presence here.

Haven risked making eye contact with Valera. Her eyebrows were drawn together sternly. Contradictions riddled her face in subtle indication. She had something to hide.

"Captain, let me be blunt. I don't know what's going on here but I intend to be absolutely professional. Whatever it is that's causing your misgiving with accepting my transfer I can promise won't be a problem."

"That's exactly the problem," Valera sighed as she sat in the chair behind her desk and swiveled it away from Haven to stare out the viewports at the stars. The Diligent really was a practical ship, built for utility before comfort, as the port holes left much to be desired for the view. As soon as Haven had arrived on the ship she felt like the rooms were smaller than the ship could afford. She had read that special attention was placed on the durability of the ship's structure and redundant systems for its size. The walls were thick, even simple partitions seemed oversized, making room for systems and structural reinforcement. A substantial ventral reinforcing bulkhead protruded inconveniently into the ready room's layout. Valera took a deep breath and turned to face her after a short pause. Haven knew when to keep her mouth shut and let people explain themselves. Silence was a powerful thing.

"Your strict adherence to Starfleet protocol is what gives me reservations about bringing you aboard. Some things have become... complicated since we were brought out here."

"Captain, your business is your business. I'm here to be your chief tactical officer and if you'll need me, your first officer."

"Oh? That wasn't in your transfer request."

Haven made a calculated move. Desperate to curry favor, she believed it might help to explain her ambitions to Valera. Haven broke eye contact and continued to stare forward, letting the Captain reach her own conclusions.

Valera sighed again, fatigue stretched across her face. "You're a Betazoid, correct?"

"Yes mam" being a Betazoid had always worked in her favor as a tactical officer and gave her a significant advantage over her adversaries. It was a quality she was proud of.

Valera leaned back in her chair and stared blankly at Haven. "What do you sense I'm feeling?"

It was Haven's turn to furrow her brow in concentration. "Captain, I try not to use my empathic senses on others around me, especially colleagues. It breaks down their trust."

"But you can't always have it off can you? Sometimes you pick up stray impressions." Haven was visibly impressed with how well Valera seemed to understand the limit of Betazoid empathic suppression techniques. "What am I feeling, Lieutenant Commander?"

"Captain, you're..." Haven tilted her head to one side slightly, confirming her reading on the woman, "You're ashamed?"

"What would I have to be ashamed of?"

"Someone on your crew... you have feelings for. Someone new to your ship." Haven made eye contact again to confirm her perceptions. Valera's eyes were closed, deep in thought. Valera knew that empathically obtained evidence was inadmissible in a court martial but Haven was correct. Still, Haven needed the Diligent and this ship needed her more than Haven wanted to be concerned with whatever might be happening behind closed doors with this Captain. Haven took the seat opposite Valera and folded her hands in her lap. "Captain; I don't care about what might be happening here. I'm not out to court martial you and T'Pel for shipboard fraternization. Fine, she can't come on away missions because she's a liability but she's not even Starfleet trained on away mission protocols." At this Valera opened her eyes again, attentively listening to Haven. "We're eighty four _thousand_ light years from home." Haven leaned forward and placed her hands on the edge of Valera's desk for emphasis. "My concern is with ship safety and defending the fleet. Please, Captain, reconsider. Give me a chance to prove myself to you."

Valera picked up the PADD with the transfer request and read through it. "I want a full report on the weapon status and shipboard security."

"Within the hour Captain." Haven was filled with an overwhelming sensation of accomplishment. She had never been so outside her element but she handled it the way she would any tactical maneuver. Observe, analyze, act and overcome.

"Check with Engineering. Last I heard weapons were back online six hours ago but I don't know the details yet. Most of your security detail didn't survive _the shift. _If you have other security officers you recommend for transfer, bring them to me and I'll see to it. Keep in mind we're a small ship, people are closer here and as such have to get along in a tiny community." Valera rose to shake her hand, Haven rose as well and accepted it. "Welcome to the Diligent."

"Thank you Captain. I won't let you down."

"I have faith in you," Valera responded warmly. "Dismissed."

Haven turned to leave but knew this was the part she was worried about. In all her years serving with starship captains she had learned that some things were a constant with command. The worst tidbits of information always came in the last moment after you were dismissed. She expected something that borders on the unprofessional yet required requests, perhaps even a threat on her career.

"And Commander," Haven paused just before the doorway to the bridge, careful not to trigger its proximity sensor that would expose their conversation to the bridge crew, expecting the worst. "Your post on the bridge is next to mine." Haven's mouth opened briefly in surprise.

Haven turned to face the Captain once again, "I expect you to carry out the duties of First Officer and Tactical simultaneously, will this be a problem?"

Haven stumbled for words and simply shook her head, no.

"Good, congratulations on the promotion Commander. You have a lot of work to do."

"Thank you Captain." Haven exited the ready room and stood on the bridge staring at the two chairs for captain and first officer. They were identical in design, exquisite in detail with embroidered leather of the ships registration number and designation. Somehow the captains chair looked clearly larger to Haven.

"Commander?" Haven looked up at T'Pel when she heard the soft Vulcan voice. Haven couldn't place how long she had been standing there. She would have to figure out how to either ignore the situation or confront it eventually. Haven sincerely had little concern with their relationship, so long as it didn't become the gossip of the ship or effect ship safety. She had worked under other superior officers with similar relationships to their subordinates. Haven hoped that this wouldn't come up as an issue.

"Lieutenant, as you were." Haven left the bridge and began her report to the Captain.

Chapter 6

Captain Emery Drell was deep asleep. Flashes of explosions riddled his vague reality. Conduits were strewn about haphazardly. Torn circuitry, bulkheads and the smoke of electrical fires displaced the oxygenated air around him. Breathing was becoming labored. His head lulled forward from the abrupt lurching of his ship absorbing the impact of weapons fire. A limb landed on the floor near his right foot. An arm with hand attached laid across his boot, phalanges twitching from severed nervous spasms. His ship and her crew were coming apart.

The piercing beep of an alarm on his console jerked him violently awake. Within moments his vision focused and mental fogginess cleared. He was still on the bridge, what remained of it, seated in the captain's chair. The alarm chimed again. Drell lifted a numb arm and silenced it. Looking around he found his two remaining officers on the bridge. Engineer Tory Trace was at her station coordinating an effort with Tactical Officer Olen Revis.

Drell looked at the floor near his right foot. The carpet had been stripped from the bridge and bare deck plating defiled the once aesthetic appearance of his ship. Drell remained convinced he could still see the blood stain of his first officers appendage on the brushed duritanium metal surface.

His quarters had been exposed to space when the last volley of the Caretaker Array ruptured the hull along deck 2 through 5 of the primary section of the USS Final Storm. Currently the Storm had insufficient power output to run even minor containment fields.

Indeed this trip seemed to be the finality of what the crew had always referred to as _The Storm_ as the informal designation of this vessel. She had been traveling through sector 225-U, en-route to Utopia Planatia for demilitarization and decommissioning. Ultimately to be placed in orbit around Earth as part of the ISS Orbiting Museum that had grown from the original station when it was removed from service. Now maintained by the _Starfleet and Early Earth History_ organization, the museum would have benefited from the Final Storm's presence there and even provide quarters for the growing staff. She would have been an exhibit to wartime with the Borg.

Sadness had once filled Captain Drell's months after he received the news and she carried out her final missions. Drell had captained this ship for almost 15 years and not only survived engagements with a handful of Borg Cubes, the Final Storm had even landed a few killing blows. The Steamrunner class of ships served their purpose brilliantly, defending Federation interests with raw military effectiveness.

The captain had even let a glimmer of hope back into his life when they were drawn out here. He had wrestled with guilt of gratitude for having his ship brought out here to be doomed. Decommission had seemed so far away for a brief moment. Back in combat with the Array had made Drell feel alive once more, again in the hot seat, doing what his ship and crew had been trained and refined to do. Absolute military triumph via the delivery of superior ordinance.

Ironically the USS Final Storm was now even closer to decommission, perhaps to be destroyed completely without so much as an empty husk for a museum.

"Captain," Revis began, "We're being hailed by the Insignia."

"On scr..." Drell closed his eyes, recalling the loss of an operational viewscreen. "Put them through."

The computer attempted the familiar sequence of beeps that normally would have indicated the connection of a com signal, instead a freakish pulsating scratch stretched on for longer than intended. "Captain Drell, this is First Officer Andrews of the Insignia."

"Go ahead commander." Drell replied as he stood in habit from responding to ship-to-ship commutation.

"We have assembled a repair crew to assist with damage assessment and temporary repairs."

"What is the status of the other ships? We don't have any sensors here." Drell frowned at his situation; More offline systems. Perhaps dragging the Final Storm out this far was a waste of effort. Out here on the frontier, this far from shipbuilding or repair facilities, every ship was invaluable. But could they consider the Storm really a ship anymore?

"The USS Diligent has returned from charting 3 of the 5 required systems we need for mapping out a new navigation system. Captain Valera is about to be underway to the remaining systems momentarily. The USS Vesta is within sensor range and has not returned yet but is attempting to isolate the location of the damping field." First Officer Commander Andrews was all business, careful to state everything professionally and completely. There was also a willingness about Andrews to be helpful that surprised Drell. Perhaps being stuck out here together promoted inter-ship teamwork. _We have to look out for each other, _Drell thought, _this situation may be reversed some time in the future and the Insignia might be blind and defenseless needing a willing ally. _"We did receive some alarming news from the Diligent, however," Andrews continued, "It appears the field is getting stronger and expanding. Back tracking may no longer be an option."

"Thank you for the update Commander. We appreciate the assistance."

"Andrews out."

Drell considered returning to his seat but decided staying awake for coordinating the repair operations was significantly more important than resting. _I can sleep all I want in my grave. _ Grim thoughts about the Final Storm becoming his grave threatened to send shivers down his spine. He willed the sensation away and made his way over to the engineering station and waited for his officers to finish their conversation before impeding.

"We're money ahead to just replace that conduit with what's still intact from the port drive-train. It would take too much time to repair that micro fracture while it's in use." Chief Engineer Trace was explaining an improvised repair procedure to Revis. While Revis was indeed the Chief Tactical Officer, he was also a proven repairmen and competent engineer. Revis had insisted that his entire security detail take shifts in engineering once a week and maintain at least a rudimentary skill set with starship systems. Revis believed that a single keystroke on an available systems panel could close a door or self destruct a station. In theory the possibility was to save a life or even prevent a war without discharging a weapon.

Revis nodded in agreement. "What about the housings? Aren't they mirror opposites of each other and the bolt patterns wont line up?" They pulled up the component schematics on the display and studied it.

"No, they were overbuilt by allowing for hard mounts, the adjacent conduits will support it enough. We can weld it in place if we have to. Even if the supports fail the magnetic suspension of the plasma stream will keep it aligned. We need it more as an insulator than anything. Once this is back in place we can bring auxiliary reactors four and five back online. Six is a goner."

"Alright, I'll get Williams on it. He's got experience with these conduits I believe. I'll meet up with him in Jeffries tube junction C-18. I'll have an open com when we get to the repair site." Revis turned and nodded at Drell, "Captain," was all he said before disappearing into the hatch behind the science station.

"How are we looking?" Captain Drell attempted to sound friendly and undemanding. He knew his crew had been working for almost 3 days without much sleep or any reprieve. He couldn't be more proud of them and he wanted his crew to know that, Drell simply had trouble expressing himself with anything unrelated to well measured orders.

"She's banged up good Captain," Trace began while rubbing her eyes and leaning back from the console. "There's no way around that. Personally I'm amazed that she held together as well as she did though. We're missing an extensive segment of life support ducting and yet we still have breathable air. Some of the diagnostics are saying we should be dark and cold but she's still purring away. The core is fine but we can't bring it online or draw power from it until we repair some supporting systems, primarily the antimatter diffusers. Without it the particle density is too great when it coalesces with the deuterium intermix chamber. Too much power in a single point, it becomes unstable and the fail-safes shut it down. We've already tried to bypass or jury rig the thing but it's old sir." Trace stopped and took a deep breath. "Without main power we can't restore main power. All we have are the cold fusion reactors one and two."

"I see, do you have a repair schedule drawn up for the Insignia repair teams?"

"Yessir."

"What can a captain do to help?"

"Sir, if I may, I have an odd request." Trace glanced at him through bleak, fatigued eyes.

"Name it," Drell said as he raised both hands at his sides momentarily to suggest he would approve about anything he could."

"I could use a nap once I hand out assignments to the teams." Trace bobbed her head at the captains chair. "Last time I saw my bed it was passing by the stern gallery viewport a few days ago."

"Mi casa su casa," Drell gestured towards the chair, inviting her to make herself home in his new quarters that happens to be doubling as a bridge.

Chapter 7

Sunsets over Parinthia were rare. The planet's axial shift left its northern hemisphere perpetually exposed to sunlight. At a 35 degree axial tilt the planet also rotates about an axis drawn through the center of the planet parallel to the system axis once per orbit, Parinthia had little seasonal variation. In fact all latitudes above roughly 60 degrees north were barren or worse due to the insistent heat of their sun.

The majority of their race lived in the lower latitudes of the northern hemisphere, nearer the equator, where temperatures became more temperate. Diurnal cycles only existed nearer the equator and the darkness of night was only complete during part of their rotational period if one traveled south of the 50 degrees north latitudes. The southern pole however was substantially less habitable.

Endless nights of pitch black and merciless storms brazenly assaulted the outer barriers of Nendi's shelter. Several hundred units above the desolate frozen landscape below, suspended by tensegrity rigid cabling and scaffolding framework, the bunker stood recalcitrantly against nature. Withstanding winds that reshaped the terrain constantly and hurricane force precipitation around the clock, the structure was truly one of the greatest engineering achievements of the Iliandari. Perpetual ice buildup that dampened the cable's natural suspension threatened to submit the facility to gravity's will. Resonance pulses were sent throughout the cables at a frequency and amplitude that shattered the ice once it reached a critical mass which was measured by the decaying height above the ground of the bunker due to its increasing weight.

The facility further utilized the cabling that held his shelter above the ground by tuning in the array as a sensory device, thus deriving its application. A shelter constructed for a single purpose, to be a watching post. To scan the skies for their dreadful adversary, the Havati.

Nendi had been assigned this post after receiving his qualifications as a watcher. While he could, indeed, analyze the incoming data himself it was instead transmitted to government faculties on the other side of the planet where life was more sustainable.

Because the Iliandari only populated the northern hemisphere, whatever direction the southern hemisphere faced was a blind spot for their people. Living under constant threat of war and invasion had its impact on a culture, on a species. Paranoid of not being able to detect an incoming fleet, his people had commissioned this and other arrays like it across the southern hemisphere. In the absolute darkness that encompassed life outside the shelter they did their work. Collecting data and relaying it for analysis. Screening out background galactic noise, carving away the traces of Iliandari transmissions and broadcasts, eventually yielding a clear picture of what was always nothing.

Paranoia had driven the Iliandari to maintain their hyper vigilance. Fear of another scorched Iliandar and the rebuilding of his society from times before his father drove their race to be watchful. Watchful and hindering.

The Iliandari people had colonized other nearby orbital bodies, purely for the sake of the harvesting resources that fueled and provided the construction materials of their fleet. A small, relatively slow fleet of only 835 ships unendingly circumnavigated the planet, providing a blanket of security for their people. The Iliandari had little interest in exploring the galaxy, they simply wanted to exists as they pleased on their planet, in their solar system and be ignored.

War with the Havati had changed that. Ships of black and deep purple, wedge shaped with scale like overlapping of layers. Some massive, many small. Without stopping to attempt communication, the Havati had stormed in and began scouring Iliandar of all life, fauna and flora alike.

Desperately the Iliandari had struggled against the Havati ships and pushed them back. At the height of their resurgence, the Iliandari generals decided that once the Havati fled to return home we could track them to their home world and launch a counter assault. Alas the opportunity never came. Once the Iliandari had seized one of their devilish ship, in hopes of using it to reverse engineer their technology, the remaining Havati assault force commenced synchronous self destruct.

Left in a cloud of fear and confusion, left to rebuild the cities that were lost due to orbital bombardment, the Iliandari people did the only thing they could do. Learn what they could from the captured vessel, and amass a superior defense force. Under the curtain of a new communist global initiative everyone was pushed to the apex of productivity. Now their technology largely resembled that of the Havati.

Soon after they reverse engineered the capacity for jamming sensory data from the Havati cruiser they discovered that indeed a jamming signal was already present throughout this region of space. Ingenious as it was they learned that their variation of the jam was effective against the captured vessel and they hoped it would also be so against the Havati themselves. The sensor damping broadcast served the Iliandari in two primary purposes. The first was to hide the might of their forces to retain the element of surprise while on the defensive. The second was a movement that was finally coming to fruition after generations of deliberation and, finally, construction. Two planets at war with each other, jamming each other so thoroughly that blinding fear prevailed throughout their society and, Nendi had often considered, possibly the Havati home planet as well.

And so Nendi watched. The endless task of observation seeming limitless before him. The forever night mired his sense of the passage of time. The constant shifting in the shearing winds of his abode make his sleep restless. His accommodations were provided for, albeit minimalist, but the floor plan was cramped and utilitarian. Even after employing the use of exercise equipment, Nendi still felt welling joint pain akin to joint atrophy and took the approved medication to subdue the symptoms.

Nendi returned to the soft green glow of his work station where he could monitor the incoming raw data. A light blinked on one of the auxiliary displays accompanied with a soft beep, alerting him to the activation of the automated de-icing system. A low hum was felt through Nendi's shoes and seat which increased in frequency to an imperceptible degree. The system activated several times throughout each day, not that he was aware of the beginning or end of each cycle. He had grown so accustomed to the automated systems that he didn't notice its characteristic vibrations.

A pending notice caught his eye. While reading through the raw machine code Nendi placed his hot caffeinated beverage on the table next to the work station. Creaking emanated from the walls where the mounting points joined the framework of the bunker to the suspension cables as he studied the symbols on his primary display.

Most of the data looked typical. Scanning through it with absolute concentration he thumbed down the readout scrolling the information past. His expression remained that of a learned scholar, calmly observing before making conclusions. He carefully took in all the information in its entirety. Then it caught his eye. A particular packet that traditionally is very small, and always read the same information since he began deciphering these textual mappings of the electromagnetic disturbances of their perceptible universe. This time however, that particular packet contained substantially more data.

His eyes widened in surprise. He re-read the code and was certain of what he was gathering. Instantly he entered in commands to send this dataset through immediately with the highest priorities to be analyzed at once and pressed transmit.


End file.
